Then he joined her in her ecstasy. Their bodies one, their passion one, fused and fusing, going on and on and on.
And then, all there was was her shaking body, trembling, stricken, as he felt the tumult ebbing from her, from himself.
Sweet heaven, but where had that come from? The intensity, the urgency, the hunger.
The sating.
She was still trembling, still shaking, and he could feel her heart pounding beneath her skin. Skin that was cooling, shivering in the aftermath of what consumed them both.
He slipped from her, turning her into his arms, smoothing her hair, her face buried in his shoulder as her body slowly calmed, her pounding heart eased and her breath quietened, until she lay very still, hands splayed against his chest, legs still tangled with his. He soothed her with murmurings in Greek that he had once spoken to her so long ago, cradling her against him after the storm of their passion.
And now he spoke to her again, making her his own once more.
As their heartbeats eased against each other, and the sleep of passion spent embraced them both.
Chapter Ten
LIGHT STIRREDLAUREL AWAKE. Or something did. Then, dimly, she realised it was not just the daylight filling the room that had awoken her. It was a sleepy, questioning voice, from beyond the connecting door, still slightly ajar.
“Mum?”
She straightened instantly, shock and dismay seizing her. In a few heart-pounding seconds, she had leapt from the bed, panic taking over.
Oh, dear God, he mustn’t find me here.
She snatched up the towelling robe provided in the en suite and pulled it on, hurrying through the doorway. But to her abject relief, Dan seemed to have gone back to sleep again. She went quietly up to him, small in the double bed, looking down at his dark hair just showing. A wave of love went through her, but more than that. Confusion, dismay intensifying and one dominant, overwhelming emotion. An emotion she knew the name of—knew it bitterly in the clear, brutal, pitiless light of day.Regretwas far, far too weak a word for it.Insanitywas the only one that fit. Total, unbelievable insanity.
“Laurel?”
The voice from the communicating doorway made her whip round. Xander was standing there wearing nothing but a towel snaked around his hips. She surged towards him, panic uppermost again, pushing him back.
“Don’t wake him!” she hissed urgently.
He stepped back, and she rushed past him, desperately looking about for where her own discarded clothes were. The splash of vermilion over the back of a chair made her target it immediately, scrabbling around for her underclothes dropped on the carpet.
In my rush to get naked.
She grabbed her clothes and pressed them against her.
“I’ve got to get out of here!” Panic was in her voice.
In Xander’s amusement, as he said, “Dan’s fast asleep. Leave him be.” His expression changed, she saw it happen. Heard the husk in his voice as he spoke again. “Come back to bed.”
Clutching her evening gown and underwear like a shield, she lurched away again.
“Xander, no! What happened last night was impossible!”
His mouth, his beautiful mouth, which had kissed her body all over so devastatingly, quirked.
“What happened last night, Laurel, was unforgettable,” he said.
“But we must forget it!” The cry, the plea, came from deep within. A desperate place.
The amusement left his face. “That is what is impossible! Forgetting it.” He stepped towards her again. “Laurel, there is no need for this panic! Last night has been waiting to happen ever since I came back into your life! I told you, the flame that burned so fiercely seven years ago is still alight. Last night proved it. How could it not?” Something changed in his face, something she had never seen before. “But now, Laurel, there is more. More than what there was then. Shall I spell it out to you?”
He held out a hand to her. “Listen, Laurel, to what I have to say.”
She lurched back again. “No! I can’t hear it—won’t hear it! Last night should never have happened!”
